Institute of Global Law

Institute News

UCL honours
distinguished women judges

On the 17th June
2002, and on the initiative of the Faculty of Laws, University College London
awarded honorary doctorates to the first women to become Members of the Constitutional
Courts of France, Germany, and Italy. They are, respectively, Madame
Noelle Lenoir (who was also Clifford Chance Visiting Professor at
the Faculty of Laws during 2001/2), Professor Dr Jutta Limbach,
(until last March) President of the German Federal Constitutional Court and
currently President of the Goethe Institute, and Madame Justice Fernanda
Contri of the Italian Constitutional Court. Short biographical information
about these three remarkable women - all of whom have close links with the
Institute of Global law - are given below.

Madame Noëlle
Lenoir began her career as a Member of Frances elite Administrative
Court - the Conseil d Etat - but her dynamism soon brought her to
the attention of successive Prime Ministers so she was seconded to work
in the Senate and the Office of the Minister of Justice which she ran effectively
for over eighteen months in the early nineties. Her growing interest in
bioetchics and a steady stream of writings on this subject led her being
asked to represent France on various European Commission Committees that
dealt with this subject of growing importance and complexity. Her efficiency
and productivity, unabated by the ever-growing responsibilities placed
on her shoulders, finally came to the attention of President Mitterand
who appointed her in 1990 as the first woman member of the French Conseil
Constitutionnel  Frances highest Court. When her ten-year tenure
as Justice expired last December she was widely tipped by the Press as
the next Minister of Justice in the Jospin Government. But she refused
to become involved in active politics and, instead, chose to take a
sabbatical leave in order to focus on her writings on bioethics and
the law - a decision facilitated by the offer of Visiting Professorships
held concurrently at the Yale Law School and the Faculty of Laws of UCL.
She eventually did enter the political field after the last general election
and is now minister déléguée aux Affairs européennes
in the French cabinet. view
ministre déléguée aux Affaires européennes
website

Professor Dr
Jutta Limbach is a notable legal scholar who held the Chair of Civil,
Commercial, Business law, and Sociology of Law at the Freie Universität
of Berlin since 1972 before becoming Minister of Justice of the State of
Berlin (1989-1994). For two of these years - 1992/3 - she was also a member
of the highly influential Joint Committee of the Bundesrat and the
Bundestag charged with the sensitive role of reforming the German
Constitution on a wide range of important matters. She resigned these posts
in 1994 to take over as the President of the German Constitutional Court,
becoming the first woman to hold this post which is fourth in hierarchy
in the German constitutional order. Her prolific writings have covered
the topics of her chair including womens rights and are permeated
by her liberal thought which she has also stamped on the Constitutional
Court during the nearly ten years she has been in charge of it. Professor
Limbachs reputation in Germany is so high and so broad-based that
she has often been talked of as a possible candidate for the post of Federal
President.

Madame Justice
Fernanda Contri, for many years national Vice President and President
of the Italian Bar Association, began her career as a practising lawyer
in her native town of Genoa were she built up a national practice of renown.
At the same time, she also developed a national profile as a writer and
speaker for social and especially womens rights in the workplace
and at home. Her high profile led her to being appointed to many important
posts such as the Consiglio Superiore della magistratura. She also became
an active and respected member of the Parliament  appointed Anti-Mafia
Board, President of the highly sensitive and important Disciplinary Division
of the Judiciary, First Secretary to the Office of Prime Minister, (the
equivalent of our Secretary of the Cabinet) Minister of Social Affairs
in the first government of Prime Minister Amato and, finally, the first
woman Justice in Italys Constitutional Court  a post which
she still holds today. Like President Limbach, Signora Contri has, through
her writings and her judicial work, captured the attention of the wider
Italian public and during the last presidential elections was considered
as a likely candidate for the post of President of the Republic.